Sunday, May 29, 2011

Aside from my parents’ case, United States v. Dennis is perhaps the mostfamous McCarthy Era Red Scare legal action. In that case the governmentconvicted the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA)of conspiring to organize a revolutionary movement. Once the hysteriaabated, the Supreme Court decision upholding that conviction became one ofthe more embarrassing episodes of our judicial history. CPUSA leaders wentto prison for coordinating the teaching of the principles ofMarxist-Leninism, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom ofassembly and speech.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Today we have the Animal EnterpriseTerrorism Act (AETA) passed in 2006. AETA is a beefed up version of theAnimal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA) that was passed in 1992.

Under AETA, “Whoever travels in interstate commerce…. for the purpose … ofinterfering with the operations of an animal enterprise, intentionally…causes the loss of any … personal property [or] intentionally places aperson in reasonable fear … of serious bodily injury … by a course ofconduct involving … harassment or intimidation or conspires or attempts todo so” shall be subject to massive fines and many years in prison. Inplain English, if you organize a group of people to take action thatresults in a financial loss to an animal enterprise or scares theemployees of that company then you can go to prison for a very long time.That’s today’s law, and so far, the one prosecution I’m aware of that thegovernment initiated under it, was dismissed without its constitutionalitybeing tested.

However, seven people went to prison for organizing against HuntingdonLife Sciences under the AEPA, the older, “gentler” version. AEPA createdthe new crime of “animal enterprise terrorism,” but you had to causephysical disruption to violate this law. It was designed to counter thegrowing underground movement of animal rights and environmental activistswho damaged property to disrupt the activities of corporations thattormented animals and despoiled the environment.

But the young people who organized Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC),and have become known as the SHAC 7 were not part of an illegalunderground campaign. Instead they organized a very public and successfuleffort to shame and harass a large corporation, Huntingdon Life Sciences.In post-9/11 America, prosecutors developed a new legal theory byexpanding the “physical disruption” language in AEPA to include loss ofprofits. The SHAC 7 were convicted of being animal enterprise terroristsunder that interpretation of physical disruption. In 2006 the judgesentenced the “conspirators” to up to six years in prison.

This movement isn’t about being nice to kittens and puppies. It’s abouttorture of animals on a massive scale, in pursuit of corporate profit.Huntingdon Life Sciences kills at least 71,000 and possibly as many as181,000 animals annually to test cleaners, cosmetics, drugs, pesticidesand other ingredients. Hidden camera videos have recorded employeesbeating animals and dissecting live monkeys.

Will Potter, in his new book Green is the New Red, describes aparticularly horrific experiment at another laboratory: “[O]ne infantprimate [was] named Britches. Experimenters had taken Britches from hismother on the night of his birth and sewn his eyes shut with thick blacksutures. They attached a sonar device to his head that let off ascreeching sound and placed him in a steel cage, alone; the isolation andsensory deprivation caused neurological disorders. Britches would lurchand shake, shrieking.”

What’s this got to do with United States v. Dennis? Just as in Dennis, thecourts in the SHAC 7 case have criminalized organizing. And if that can bedone under AEPA, you can imagine the result under AETA, which could beconsidered as AEPA on steroids!

I know there are RFC supporters who feel that fighting for animal rightsis a somewhat trivial pursuit compared to trying to prevent the horrificcrimes against humanity carried out by multi-national corporations and themany governments they influence or control. But the behavior against whichthese activists are organizing, is part of the same culture that permeatesthe military industrial complex, the energy companies, the private prisoncorporations, and so on. These are the same foes we all face every day.The rights the corporations and their political flunkies seek to curtailbelong to us all. And the sensibilities these heroic young militants seekto spread are the same values to which other progressives aspire.

Let’s not look down our noses at a new generation of activists whosecauses vary from our own and who are doing things a little differentlyfrom what our generation did. Instead, let’s emphasize our points ofconvergence. We need as much solidarity as we can get in taking on thecorporate juggernaut.

Robert Meeropol is an activist, author, and attorney, and the younger sonof Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1990 Robert started the Rosenberg Fundfor Children, a public foundation that helps children in the U.S. whoseparents are targeted, progressive activists, and also youth who themselveshave been targeted because of their own activism. Read other articles byRobert.

Break the Chains.info

is a news and discussion forum for supporters of political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized social prisoners, and victims of police and state intimidation.

This blog is organized and updated autonomously of the disbanded Break the Chains Prisoner Support Network formerly based in Eugene, Oregon. While this online project shares several of the same concerns as the old Break the Chains collective, no formal organization exists behind the current web presence.

"I will never surrender my pride and dignity nor allow the system to 'cut my tongue' and I will always, without fear, speak out against these war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter if I spend the rest of my life in a prison cage, and draw my last breath of air laying down in this steel bed surrounded by razor-wire fences and cages, and its prison policies that are designed to destroy one's humanity…."